It is often desirable to couple members, such as pipes or tubes, with one another or with another structure. For example, one may wish to join two pipes to form a longer pipe or couple tubes used in a structure to form longer structural members.
In some applications, metal or steel pipes are required to be joined. One such application is the joining of metal pipes used to carry low or moderate to high-pressure fluids such as water, oil or gas. The joins for such pipes are required to be sealed and withstand a relatively high-pressure load. Typically, a hot welding process is used to join the pipes. Similar processes are used to join the pipes to other structures such as end flanges or the like.
A problem with the welding of the joints is that hot work is required which can be hazardous and require special procedures to be followed to inhibit the risk of explosion or fire. Another problem is that a skilled welder is required to perform the welding. In maintenance situations, this requires the welder to be on-site which may be expensive and in some instances the welder may not be available. Yet another problem is that welding joints is time consuming and also may require an additional technician for non-destructive testing.
The invention disclosed herein seeks to overcome one or more of the above identified problems or at least provide a useful alternative.